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A Better Beehive

In this video from the PBS series NATURE, students learn about the lengths honey badgers will go to for a taste of their namesake. Guy Stubbs, a local beekeeper, tries to design a badger-proof beehive that will keep both bees and badgers out of harm's way.

The honey badger is a carnivorous mammal native to Africa, Western Asia, and the Indian Subcontinent. They are members of the Mustelidae family, which also includes weasels and otters. As one might suspect, the honey badger has a fondness for honey (their scientific name, Mellivora, stems from the Latin for honey, mel, and devour, voro), which often puts them in conflict with local beekeepers.

Honey badgers are highly intelligent and strong, and the damage they cause to beehives in pursuit of their sweet contents can cost apiaries significantly. Even in communities where honey badgers are legally protected, there are beekeepers who resort to killing badgers that threaten their beehives. The trapping and killing of honey badgers is a practice that is of great concern to wildlife conservationists, but there are cost-effective ways of preventing conflict between badgers and beekeepers.

There are two kinds of commonly used hive protection measures, one category involves keeping the hive on the ground, and the other involves raising hives off the ground, which helps prevent badgers from reaching them. Beekeepers who want to keep their hives on the ground can wrap the outside with wire or enclose them in steel straps. Badgers are generally able to move hives protected in this way, however it is more difficult to break into the hive itself. Bee keepers can also opt to raise the hives off of the ground, usually with a metal or wood pole with a platform on top.

In a 2001 study, participating beekeepers reported that using these simple hive protection measures reduced the percentage of damaged hives from 23% to 1%. The economic benefits of protecting bee hives often outweigh the costs and beekeepers who use these techniques are less likely to set traps for honey badgers.

While many beekeepers ‘badger-proof’ their hives, there are still those who resort to killing badgers. The South African bee keeping industry and wildlife conservation organizations have partnered in an effort to combat the practice of killing honey badgers. Several partner organizations created a “honey badger-friendly” label to identify products that use honey harvested in way that does not harm badgers. By giving consumers the information they need to support “honey badger-friendly” practices, combined with providing beekeepers with training on how to implement these practices, the organizations involved in the “badger-friendly” honey movement hope to create a world where badgers and bee keepers can peacefully coexist.

Before starting the video, ask students for words they associate with “pest.” After sharing out, tell your students that today you will be learning about a pest that has been interfering with the beekeeping industry in South Africa for decades.

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Funder:Major support for NATURE is provided by the Arnhold Family, in Memory of Clarisse Arnhold, the Lillian Goldman Charitable Trust, and the Filomen M. D’Agostino Foundation. Support is also provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and PBS.